So the hatemail dubbed me THE.... Sodomite Hal Duncan!! (sic) So I will wear that with pride, cuntfuckers. It's like The Outlaw Josie Wales only better, right? I mean, did he have a fully capitalised THE, an extra-long dramatic pause, and two exclamation marks? No, he did not. Chickenshit.

Friday, December 20, 2013

A Movie Pitch

When a redneck reality TV star is kicked off his show for homophobic slurs, he threatens to sue the network for discriminating against him as a Christian. The next day an idealistic young civil rights lawyer turns up to take on his case. Unbeknown to the star though, the lawyer is gay and has a cunning plan: to set a legal precedent establishing homophobia as a core tenet of Christianity, and thereby get the entire faith classified as a hate group. Unbeknown to the lawyer though, the star is just as gay, and before you know it, sparks are flying between the two.

Awkward situations reveal the attraction, flustering both characters. Even as the funds and support are pouring in from right wing politicians, pundits and the public, their attempts to maintain the pretense of heterosexuality become increasingly farcical--the star turning to ex-gay quacks, the lawyer narrowly escaping discovery in situation after situation. Eventually though, the absurdity of it all peaks, tension breaks, love gets its way, and a fateful night ends up with them waking together in bed the next day.

Now both begin to question what they're doing. Should the star really be defending his closet case homophobia? Should the lawyer really be exploiting the man he now loves? It all comes to a crunch as the court case is nearing completion, when the star decides he just can't go on living this lie--and fighting a cause that's against his very nature. Unfortunately, just as he's all set to declare his love, ironically hoping to persuade the lawyer to come out of the closet with him, now he finds out that his lover has been lying to him all along. The shit hits the fan, and after the inevitable bust-up both are left alone and miserable, each in their long dark night of the soul.

All seems lost, the lovers torn apart, neither knowing how to extricate themselves from the legal mess they've got themselves into, but at the last minute, spurred by the prejudice of their "supporters," the lawyer proves the depth of his love, and the star is reminded of the Christian principle of forgiveness. Just as the lawyer is about to withdraw the suit, the star shows up in court, as determined as ever to win. Which they do, in part by exposing the TV exec who fired the star as a hypocrite guilty of homophobia himself. Now the press conference gives the big reveal, as a friend planted as reporter in the audience points out the implications: Christianity is now legally arguable as a hate group.

There's a twist though: when challenged on this, the star has a simple answer: sue me. He all but invites a class action suit from Christians for slander and defamation, against him the justice system and the right wing newspaper that supported him throughout. He's happy to cop to it, we learn, and pay them off with the very funds donated for this anti-PC cause. Essentially our heroes have conscripted every non-bigot in the faith to deal with all the "violation of free speech" bullshit from politicians and pundits; if the faithful don't want to be considered homophobes by definition, it's up to them to quash the defense of bigotry as faith. In the end, the lovers go off together, having set the cat among the pigeons, with a little kicker to close: the lawyer would, of course, be entirely up for representing the Christians who considered their faith slandered.